web101 - Intellectual Property and Fair Use

Slideshow: Property, Intellectual Property, And Free Riding

Talk: Larry Lessing on Laws that Choke Creativity

Professor James Boyle, Duke University, argues that our culture, science and economic welfare all depend on a delicate balance between intellectual property and the public domain.

• Define "ownership", both as a concrete concept and as an abstraction, as a practical measure of property rights.
• Identify your rights as the owner of intellectual property
• Explain why seeking permission to use copyrighted material is preferable to using materials without permission.
• Identify some common instances of copyright infringement.

Website: Using the Four Factors Fair Use Test (University of Texas)

The four fair use factors:

What is the character of the use?
What is the nature of the work to be used?
How much of the work will you use?
What effect would this use have on the market for the original or for permissions if the use were widespread?

Website: Fair Use Example Scenarios (University of North Carolina)

Document: A Summary of the TEACH ACT

EXTRA CREDIT

PDF: Harvard Study Finds Weaker Copyright Protection Has Benefited Society

Economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf have just released a new Harvard Business School working paper called File Sharing and Copyright that raises some important points about file sharing, copyright, and the net benefits to society.

PDF: The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

This document is a code of best practices that helps educators using media literacy concepts and techniques to interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances—especially when the cultural or social beneﬁts of the use are predominant. It is a general right that applies even in situations where the law provides no speciﬁc authorization for the use in question—as it does for certain narrowly deﬁned classroom activities.

Radio Show: Plagiarism (To The Best of Our Knowledge)

Malcolm Gladwell knows how to succeed in show business without really trying -- write a story for The New Yorker about a psychiatrist who studies serial killers. Then a playwright will take some of the words from your article and use them in a Broadway play. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, Gladwell will share his story of plagiarism. Also, D.J. Spooky on how he takes the images, sounds and technologies that bombard us daily and transforms them into his own art.